The Arabs obviously want their own state, but not a Jewish state alongside it.

Had they wanted a two-state solution, they would have adhered to the Oslo Agreements and not launched a war of terrorism; they would have accepted Ehud Barak's far-reaching concessions at Camp David and not responded by murdering hundreds of Jews in terrorist attacks.

Well, "gushingly breathless" is how I describe the type of writing from abroad that (a) praises radical left-wingers in Israel, preferrably the intellectual or literary type; (b) has no idea what the conflict between we Zionists and the Arabs is really all about; and (c) urges upon Israel the dangerous policies of folly and recklessness that, in most instances, they would want practiced in their own backyards.

Amos Oz, one of Israel's most prominent novelists, said it might be "the first flicker of light at the edge of the darkness". The ceasefire between the Israeli military and Palestinian fighters is only two days old, it only covers the Gaza Strip, not the still-occupied West Bank, and already it has been breached a number of times.

Yet some in Israel and among the Palestinians are hoping that the end to a particularly brutal round of violence, five months of clashes in Gaza that have claimed at least 380 lives, may be the beginning of a return to peace talks. If so, it would be the first time for major negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians in the six years since the start of the second intifada.

"Perhaps a change on both sides is occurring at present," said Oz, writing in yesterday's Yedioth Ahronoth, a popular Israeli newspaper. "The feeling of impasse and the fear of a vicious cycle apparently is shared by both sides." If the ceasefire was followed by other key steps it could be, he said, "the threshold of a new process".

Most Israelis and Palestinians understand, he said, what a future agreement would look like: two states on the 1967 borders with "reciprocal changes", two capitals in Jerusalem, no "right of return" but likewise the end of "most of the settlements" on the West Bank. But leaders on both sides have failed to move convincingly towards that future.

A state security court on Thursday sentenced three Islamic militants to death for their involvement in suicide attacks that killed 34 people at Sinai resorts in 2004.

Younes Mohammed Mahmoud, Osama al-Nakhlawi and Mohammed Jaez Sabbah were found guilty of terrorism, murder, illegal possession of weapons and belonging to a terrorist group.

More than 100 people wounded in the bombings at the resorts of Taba and Ras Shitan on the Egyptian-Israeli border, an area popular with Israeli tourists. Eleven Israelis were killed.

You see, in Israel, we don't really have the death sentence and in the special cases that do exist (perpetrators of Nazi crimes against the Jewish people or by special military tribunal), it really isn't relevant to the war against terrorism.

True, we have targeted eliminations of terrorists but that is in a war situation.

In an op-ed, in response to some mail she received about her opinions, she had this to say:-

But there’s something else in their messages that explains why moderation is a concept with which Muslims struggle, even in the 21st century.

Imran says that there’s “no such thing” as reducing the Quran to selected passages. Translation: the Quran must be accepted as the alpha and the omega of God’s will. Likewise with Sonya. When she accuses me of not knowing “how to talk to people”, she’s saying that Muslims don’t want to hear about anything negative in our revelations.

The irony is, my defence of the Pope played up the Quran’s non-violence. I pointed out that Islam’s holy book encourages Muslims to reflect far more than to retaliate. Even if someone is mocking your religion, the Quran advises, walk away. Once tempers have cooled, engage in dialogue.

...All Muslims are taught that because the Quran comes after the Torah and the Bible, we must regard it as the final and perfect manifesto of the Divine. It is, we’re told, free of ambiguities, contradictions and human editing; in other words, free of the corruption that contaminates Jewish and Christian scriptures.

Thus the central conundrum for us Muslims. If it’s an article of our faith that the Quran is the unfiltered declaration of God, then what makes moderate Muslims “moderate”?

Perhaps it’s that they won’t murder to assert their convictions. But is this enough, given that moderates such as Sonya tolerate the murderers? And, as Imran demonstrates, those of us who dare to imply that the Quran can be questioned are not real Muslims. We are Jews.

Fortunately, more and more Muslims are proclaiming that it’s time for a liberal Islamic reformation. Two groups that powerfully attest to this movement are the Democratic Muslims of Denmark and their off-shoot, the Critical Muslims, both of which emerged from the Danish cartoon wars.

It’s revealing that neither group calls itself the “Moderate Muslims”. Their members considered doing so. But in the end, they couldn’t agree on what “moderate” means. Maybe that’s because it means too little. Suppose more of us aimed to be reform-minded instead?

Like all obscenities, it distorts more than it describes. It inflames more than it informs. It obscures much more than it illuminates. And like all true obscenities, it poisons those who employ it, as much as those who are its intended targets.

The poison that is occupation is in all of us. It is everywhere around us, even for those of us who cannot see it. If you live here, even for those of us who don't feel it - or don't realize that they do - it's inside of you.

Can you learn to live with it? Not really. Because it poisons all of our lives. There is no antidote that has tested safe. No cure. Only the extremist can live with it. In fact, the extremists on both sides positively thrive on the concept and its fallout, its mind-set, its bloodshed. Occupation gives extremists on both sides their reason for being, their sense of empowerment, of superiority of intellect, of divine right, of knowing what the rabble do not, of feeling what the masses cannot.

[Well, at least he admits that the Arabs are somehow "occupiers" but I'd wish he'd be more specific - is it only in Shiloh or, more importantly, maybe Jaffo, etc.]

It is the poison of occupation that pumps extremists full of themselves. It is the poison that puts that gleaming, terrifying smile on the face. It is the poison of occupation that fuels their passion for the messianic, their belief in messianism as realism, their sense of being able to make perfect, symmetric, rational sense of a horrific world.

[actually, I think it's more his hatred of Jewish revenants that pumps him up]

It is the poison of occupation that kills any proposed solution to the conflict that threatens us all. Only the extremist is not threatened. The extremist will tell you that he loves this place like no other. Believe him. For the extremist, a Holy Land in perpetual strife in heaven on earth.

...Hamas is on its throne, and is not about to budge. No compromise, no recognition of Israel as a reality, not even if that meant alleviating suffering for the needy, not even if that meant an eventual solution we could all live with. No flexibility over the right of return, even if that meant never having a Palestinian state at all. Not even if that meant that Palestinians could have a modicum of well-being, their children a future.

The radical settlers are on their land, and they're not about to budge. No compromise, no recognition of the Palestinians as a reality. Not even if that meant that the settlement blocs endorsed by our American ally could be part of a solution, internationally recognized as sovereign parts of the permanent borders of an internationally recognized state of Israel. Not even if that meant that we could have a modicum of well-being, our children a future.

[a modicum? doesn't he realize how much more terrorism there would be if we were not in our homes in Shiloh, et al.?]

...They want it all. If we let them, they'll take it all.

At this point, in our poisoned state, the moderates on both sides can barely bring themselves to function.

Envy the extremist.

Envy him his freedom from ambiguity, his immunity from ambivalence. Only the extremist knows exactly why there is no moral equivalency between the sides, and that only his side is in the right.

Only he knows what the world does not, what the world refuses to see. Only the extremist knows what many on his own side refuse to see, either because they lack his vision, or they lack his loyalty. Only he knows who's at fault for all our ills. The other side. Only the extremist knows who started all this suffering, who's entirely to blame, who are the transgressors, why they're the real villains.

What is this drug that allows us to thrive while the rest of us stew in the misery their actions and beliefs cause us?

It is the drug that is compounded of old dreams. Dreams, rivers and mountains and bottomless reservoirs of dreams, are the cultural birthright of our peoples, the Jews and the Palestinians both.

[actually, I envy the columnist whose position grants him the automatic worship as one-who-is-smart-and-inteliigent, when they're not.]

Notice how his language gets harsher and more virulent over the years?

In some of the harshest and one-sided language he has used to date, former Democratic President Jimmy Carter called Israeli "domination" over Palestinians "atrocious" in an interview today on ABC's "Good Morning America." Carter said there was "no doubt now that a minority of Israelis are perpetuating apartheid on the people in Palestine, the Palestinian people."

Carter called Israel's occupation the "prime cause" of continuing violence in the Middle East.

"And contrary to the United Nations resolutions, contrary to the official policy of the United States government, contrary to the Quartet so-called road map, all of those things – and contrary to the majority of Israeli people's opinion – this occupation and confiscation and colonization of land in the West Bank is the prime cause of a continuation of violence in the Middle East," he said.

"And what is being done to the Palestinians under Israeli domination is really atrocious. It's a terrible affliction on these people."

Tuesday, November 28, 2006

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said on Tuesday evening that "we are a little disappointed by the continuation of Kassam rocket fire at the South by the Palestinians."

Speaking at a meeting with European Union envoys at the Finnish Embassy, Olmert added, "I hope very much that the Palestinians will honor their obligations and stop the fire."

Mere hours after IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Dan Halutz sought to deflect responsibility for the cease-fire between Israel and the Gaza Strip, terrorists in northern Gaza violated the day-old agreement by firing two Kassam rockets at Sderot.

Both of the rockets landed in an open area, and no one was wounded in the attack.

Monday, November 27, 2006

"We, the state of Israel, will agree to the evacuation of many territories and the settlements that we built there. This is extremely difficult for us, like the splitting of the Red Sea. We will do it for real peace"

He promised a Palestinian state "with territorial contiguity in Judea and Samaria," and borders that will be defined "in accordance with President Bush's April 14th, 2004 letter to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon - borders that will be different from the territories currently under Israel's control."

In the framework of this dialogue, and in accordance with the Roadmap, you will be able to establish an independent and viable Palestinian State, with territorial contiguity in Judea and Samaria – a State with full sovereignty and defined borders.

In this framework, the borders of the State of Israel will be defined, in accordance with President Bush's April 14th, 2004 letter to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

These borders will be different from the territories currently under Israel's control.

We, the State of Israel, will agree to the evacuation of many territories and communities which were established therein. This is extremely difficult for us, akin to the Parting of the Red Sea, but we will bear it, in exchange for true peace.

In another two weeks, we will mark the 40th anniversary of the awarding of the Nobel Prize for Literature to Shmuel Yosef (Shai) Agnon. Here is his speech at the Nobel Banquet at the City Hall in Stockholm, December 10, 1966. It is a remarkable piece of Jewish pride.

Our sages of blessed memory have said that we must not enjoy any pleasure in this world without reciting a blessing. If we eat any food, or drink any beverage, we must recite a blessing over them before and after. If we breathe the scent of goodly grass, the fragrance of spices, the aroma of good fruits, we pronounce a blessing over the pleasure. The same applies to the pleasures of sight: when we see the sun in the Great Cycle of the Zodiac in the month of Nissan, or the trees first bursting into blossom in the spring, or any fine, sturdy, and beautiful trees, we pronounce a blessing. And the same applies to the pleasures of the ear. Through you, dear sirs, one of the blessings concerned with hearing has come my way.

It happened when the Swedish Chargé d'Affaires came and brought me the news that the Swedish Academy had bestowed the Nobel Prize upon me. Then I recited in full the blessing that is enjoined upon one that hears good tidings for himself or others: «Blessed be He, that is good and doeth good. «Good», in that the good God put it into the hearts of the sages of the illustrious Academy to bestow that great and esteemed Prize upon an author who writes in the sacred tongue; «that doeth good », in that He favoured me by causing them to choose me. And now that I have come so far, I will recite one blessing more, as enjoined upon him who beholds a monarch: «Blessed art Thou, O Lord, our God, King of the Universe, Who hast given of Thy glory to a king of flesh and blood. Over you, too, distinguished sages of the Academy, I say the prescribed blessing: «Blessed be He, that has given of His wisdom to flesh and blood. »

It is said in the Talmud (Tractate Sanhedrin 23a): «In Jerusalem, the men of discrimination did not sit down to dine in company until they knew who their companions were to be»; so I will now tell you who am I, whom you have agreed to have at your table.

As a result of the historic catastrophe in which Titus of Rome destroyed Jerusalem and Israel was exiled from its land, I was born in one of the cities of the Exile. But always I regarded myself as one who was born in Jerusalem. In a dream, in a vision of the night, I saw myself standing with my brother-Levites in the Holy Temple, singing with them the songs of David, King of Israel, melodies such as no ear has heard since the day our city was destroyed and its people went into exile. I suspect that the angels in charge of the Shrine of Music, fearful lest I sing in wakefulness what I had sung in dream, made me forget by day what I had sung at night; for if my brethren, the sons of my people, were to hear, they would be unable to bear their grief over the happiness they have lost. To console me for having prevented me from singing with my mouth, they enable me to compose songs in writing.

(Out of respect for the time, the rest of my words will be read in translation only.)

I belong to the Tribe of Levi; my forebears and I are of the minstrels that were in the Temple, and there is a tradition in my father's family that we are of the lineage of the Prophet Samuel, whose name I bear.

I was five years old when I wrote my first song. It was out of longing for my father that I wrote it. It happened that my father, of blessed memory, went away on business. I was overcome with longing for him and I made a song. After that I made many songs, but nothing has remained of them all. My father's house, where I left a roomful of writings, was burned down in the First World War and all I had left there was burned with it. The young artisans, tailors, and shoemakers, who used to sing my songs at their work, were killed in the First World War and of those who were not killed in the war, some were buried alive with their sisters in the pits they dug for themselves by order of the enemy, and most were burned in the crematories of Auschwitz with their sisters, who had adorned our town with their beauty and sung my songs with their sweet voices.

The fate of the singers who, like my songs, went up in flame was also the fate of the books which I later wrote. All of them went up in flame to Heaven in a fire which broke out one night at my home in Bad Homburg as I lay ill in a hospital. Among the books that were burned was a large novel of some seven hundred pages, the first part of which the publisher had announced he was about to bring out. Together with this novel, called Eternal Life, was burned everything I had written since the day I had gone into exile from the Land of Israel, including a book I had written with Martin Buber as well as four thousand Hebrew books, most of which had come down to me from my forebears and some of which I had bought with money set aside for my daily bread.

I said, «since the day I had gone from the Land of Israel», but I have not yet related that I had dwelt in the Land of Israel. Of this I will now speak.

At the age of nineteen and a half, I went to the Land of Israel to till its soil and live by the labour of my hands. As I did not find work, I sought my livelihood elsewhere. I was appointed Secretary of the Hovevei Zion (Lovers of Zion) Society and Secretary of the Palestine Council - which was a kind of parliament-in-the-making and I was also the first Secretary of the voluntary Jewish Magistrate's Court. Through these offices it was my privilege to get to know almost every Jewish person, and those whom I did not come to know through these offices I came to know through love and a desire to know my brethren, the members of my people. It is almost certain that in those years there was not a man, woman, or infant in the Land of Israel whom I did not know.

After all my possessions had been burned, God gave me the wisdom to return to Jerusalem. I returned to Jerusalem, and it is by virtue of Jerusalem that I have written all that God has put into my heart and into my pen. I have also written a book about the Giving of the Torah, and a book on the Days of Awe, and a book on the books of Israel that have been written since the day the Torah was given to Israel.

Since my return to the Land of Israel, I have left it twice: once in connection with the printing of my books by the late Zalman Schocken, and once I travelled to Sweden and Norway. Their great poets had implanted love and admiration for their countries in my heart, and I decided to go and see them. Now I have come a third time, to receive your blessing, sages of the Academy.

During the time I have dwelt in Jerusalem, I have written long stories and short ones. Some have been printed; most I still have in manuscript.

I have already told how my first songs came out of longing for my father. The beginnings of my studies also came to me from my father, as well as from the Rabbinical Judge of our town. But they were preceded by three tutors under whom I studied, one after the other, from the time I was three and a half till I turned eight and a half.

Who were my mentors in poetry and literature? That is a matter of opinion. Some see in my books the influences of authors whose names, in my ignorance, I have not even heard, while others see the influences of poets whose names I have heard but whose writings I have not read. And what is my opinion ? From whom did I receive nurture? Not every man remembers the name of the cow which supplied him with each drop of milk he has drunk. But in order not to leave you totally in the dark, I will try to clarify from whom I received whatever I have received.

First and foremost, there are the Sacred Scriptures, from which I learned how to combine letters. Then there are the Mishna and the Talmud and the Midrashim and Rashi's commentary on the Torah. After these come the Poskim - the later explicators of Talmudic Law - and our sacred poets and the medieval sages, led by our Master Rabbi Moses, son of Maimon, known as Maimonides, of blessed memory.

When I first began to combine letters other than Hebrew, I read every book in German that came my way, and from these I certainly received according to the nature of my soul. As time is short, I shall rot compile a bibliography or mention any names. Why, then, did I list the Jewish books? Because it is they that gave me my foundations. And my heart tells me that they are responsible for my being honoured with the Nobel Prize.

There is another kind of influence, which I have received from every man, every woman, every child I have encountered along my way, both Jews and non-Jews. People's talk and the stories they tell have been engraved on my heart, and some of them have flown into my pen. It has been the same way with the spectacles of nature. The Dead Sea, which I used to see every morning at sunrise from the roof of my house, the Arnon Brook in which I used to bathe, the nights I used to spend with devout and pious men beside the Wailing Wall - nights which gave me eyes to see the land of the Holy One, Blessed be He-the Wall which He gave us, and the city in which He established His name.

Lest I slight any creature, I must also mention the domestic animals, the beasts and birds from whom I have learned. Job said long ago (135:11): «Who teacheth us more than the beasts of the earth, And maketh us wiser than the fowls of heaven?» Some of what I have learned from them I have written in my books, but I fear that I have not learned as much as I should have, for when I hear a dog bark, or a bird twitter, or a cock crow, I do not know whether they are thanking me for all I have told of them, or calling me to account.

Before I conclude my remarks, I will say one more thing. If I have praised myself too much, it is for your sake that I have done so, in order to reassure you for having cast your eyes on me. For myself, I am very small indeed in my own eyes. Never in all my life have I forgotten the Psalm (131:1) in which David said: «Lord, my heart is not haughty, nor mine eyes lofty; neither do I exercise myself in great matters, or in things too high for me.» If I am proud of anything, it is that I have been granted the privilege of living in the land which God promised our forefathers to give us, as it is written (Ezekiel 37: 25): «And they shall dwell in the land that I have given unto Jacob my servant, wherein your fathers have dwelt; and they shall dwell therein, even they, and their children, and their children's children forever.»

Before concluding, I would say a brief prayer: He who giveth wisdom unto the wise and salvation unto kings, may He increase your wisdom beyond measure and exalt your sovereign. In his days and in ours may Judah be redeemed and Israel dwell in safety. May a redeemer come to Zion, may the earth be filled with knowledge and eternal joy for all who dwell therein, and may they enjoy much peace. May all this be God's will. Amen.

EACH night, Carolyn Ginsburg and Mark Stern share pillow talk without the talk. They fall into their own silent language, revealing the day’s news and anxieties through lips, gestures and glances.

Their ability to converse visually has been honed through decades of practice. Ms. Ginsburg, now 39, was a young girl when she started her journey toward a hearing loss that is greater than 80 percent. Mr. Stern, 42, became deaf when he contracted meningitis as a 1-year-old.

By day, they interact easily with their co-workers: she as a director overseeing a group of credit cards at American Express and he as an executive of GoAmerica Communications in Hackensack, N.J.

...their get-together ended without so much as a hug. Nevertheless, Ms. Ginsburg said that she scribbled in her diary that night: “Met an interesting person from California. He really wowed me. I don’t think I’ll ever see him again.”

In February 2005, more than seven years later, Ms. Ginsburg was on her way to see an Israeli film when she stopped off in an Upper West Side coffee shop...As she was talking on her cellphone at the coffee shop, she looked up and saw a man wearing the distinctive-looking cochlear hearing aid implant — a device that transmits electronic impulses into his auditory nerve. Something clicked. She mouthed to him, “Are you, by chance, Mark Stern?” Yes, he replied.

...As they drew closer, Mr. Stern arranged to install videophones in their homes so they could “talk” at night. “I had to put on a dress when I was on the phone,” Ms. Ginsburg said, laughing about the anxiety it caused. She added, “My grandmother would say that you know you love someone when you can’t find words to explain it. You just do. That’s how I feel about Mark.”

...While vacationing in the Outer Banks in North Carolina last July, Mr. Stern, an avid pilot, pointed out a plane in the sky. Accustomed to his constant fascination with passing planes, Ms. Ginsburg initially didn’t react. He insisted she look. She did. The plane was towing a banner that read, “Carolyn, Will You Marry Me? Mark.” She immediately said yes.

Mr. Stern said, “When I asked her mother for Carolyn’s hand in marriage, she asked me, ‘Why do you love my daughter?’ I replied, ‘I just can’t explain it, but I can tell you that I just know that I do.’ She said, ‘That’s the right answer.’ And we smiled.”

Their wedding took place on a drizzly afternoon Nov. 12 at the Glen Head Country Club in Glen Head, N.Y. During the ceremony, which was performed by Rabbi Robert S. Widom, two interpreters who understand and can sign in both English and Hebrew, stood at the ready. One was for the dozen or so guests who were deaf or hard of hearing. The other was for the bride and bridegroom, who were especially keen to take in the cantor’s singing, which can be hard for them to make out because it often includes drawn-out syllables. “We wanted to make sure we didn’t miss anything,” Mr. Ginsburg said.

During a historical discussion I once heard at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, the speakers argued about the extent to which the British helped or undermined the efforts to establish a Jewish state. Everyone agrees that in spite of all the problems, until the publication of the 1939 White Paper, British policy could be described as pro-Zionist. Afterward the British government began to sympathize with the Arabs and with the end of World War II, the Jewish undergrounds fought against the British Mandate. Some people point out that even David Ben-Gurion, during the height of the struggle, cursed the Mandatory government and called it a "a Nazi-British government."

I have just returned from a visit to the Occupied Palestinian Territories and Israel, to investigate whether the aid, paid for by Edinburgh taxpayers, is being used effectively.

...I listened to evidence from the Palestinians, children in a refugee camp school and their parents. I also heard from Israeli settlers on the West Bank who believed they had a right to be there...From the Palestinians I also heard about how their land was originally given away from under them by the British and others.

The Israelis believe they must protect themselves and justified the construction of the partition wall, which has all the looks of the Berlin wall, on the grounds of security...

...Because of the humanitarian crisis, we are delivering aid to those suffering most, but some of the projects funded by taxpayers in the UK are being blown up by those we also support. I saw the remains of a bombed Palestinian police station which was full of computers, supplied by the UK to combat crime.

One reason given for the attack was to kill a known terrorist who was being held at the station. He fled when the building collapsed.

Settlements are now springing up throughout the West Bank, built on hilltops - like forts, using up the scarce resource of water five times more quickly than the locals and accessed by roads which bypass existing villages.

A form of apartheid exists on many roads with road blocks and checkpoints now so frequent that local produce is destroyed by the time it gets to market.

As you can read here, I specifically pointed out the un-apartheid nature of our roads, with Pal. cars driving by. Tsk, tsk.

And those poor UK computers, in a police station housing and training terrorists. Oh, my.

And those Israelis, imagine, "believing" they must protect themselves (but is it true someone may ask). With something that looks like a 'Berlin Wall'.

Sunday, November 26, 2006

Hadash Chairman MK Mohammad Barakeh responded Sunday to the High Court’s ruling that the security fence route in Jerusalem was legal and said, “There is no legitimate law for occupations, so there cannot be legitimacy in the ruling either.”

Will Barakeh suffer the same fate as right-of-center activists who are pilloried in the media and the Knesset?

Hanan (who seems to be around 11 years old), says he did not imagine such a thing would happen. "Without Abba (my father) I have no life" , he says.

Then Hanan is asked whether he wants to continue to live in Sderot.His answer is categorical:"Yes! If I and my family would leave Sderot, this would be the end of the country. I love the State of Israel very much and if Sderot would be dismantled, this would be the end of the country. If the Hamas would see that they succeeded in Sderot, they will do it in the entire country...Ashkelon, Ashdod...everywhere. All the Jews will be dispersed; where will they go? Everywhere Jews are hated....

Then the interviewer asks Hanan what he would tell the Prime Minister if he would come to his house:"I don't want to talk to him nor see him. I would kick him out of my house. I would throw stones at him.""The same about Amir Peretz. If he really cared about Sderot, he would know what to do, but he doesn't."

The camera then turns to show how some roofs of some schools in Sderot are being covered by steel to try and protect the children, while the interviewer points out that this is obviously not what needs to be done to protect Sderot.

Then we see Hanan again who passionately turns to Olmert and Peretz and urges them to declare they cannot deal with the situation and therfore must resign. "Resign and let Bibi Netanyahu and Lieberman take your place. Resign, resign...I Hanan, son of Yaakov, TURN to you and urge you: RESIGN!! FAST!

In one word- this videoclip is a must see.A little boy, who says it better than any adult.

Saturday, November 25, 2006

While in previous posts I have highlighted Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran with Satmar Jews and Vladimir Putin, here's a picture of an Iranian, Muhammed Khatami (the former President), with an Israeli 18 year-old student, Hila Yashar of St. Andrews University in Scotland.

When we signed the letter of protest to the ADL in the matter of Tony Judt [NYR, November 16], it was because we believe in freedom of speech. It was not because we believe in a Jewish conspiracy to control the country or the world. Obviously you did not grasp this, since you chose to illustrate the text of the letter with a photograph of Abraham Foxman chatting with John Negroponte. The implication of your image is wild. What sinister instruction, exactly, do you think Foxman was carrying from the elders in New York to the head of intelligence in Washington? Were they speaking in English, do you think, or more prudently in a Jewish tongue? And this in the same issue in which you took such a courageous stand against Vichy anti-Semitism!

Franklin FoerLeon WieseltierThe New RepublicWashington, D.C.

The Editors reply:

As the background visible in the Reuters news agency photograph published in the November 16 issue indicated, John Negroponte spoke at a public occasion organized by the ADL. In fact, it was the 28th Annual National Leadership Conference of the ADL. The Washington Post report of Mr. Negroponte's speech on April 25, 2006, began as follows:

John Negroponte, the national intelligence director, who is in the thick of an unprecedented effort to crack down on leaks of classified information, figured he'd start off his speech at the Mayflower Hotel yesterday with a couple of jokes.After an affectionate introduction by an official from the Anti-Defamation League, Negroponte quipped, "Beats the introduction I got at the National Press Club the other day."

Mr. Negroponte, according to the text released by his office, continued as follows:

Abe Foxman, my good friend and partner. It says here, partner in opposing one-sided anti-Israel resolutions when I was ambassador at the UN, but it goes much beyond that. We were very good friends. We consulted on a whole range of issues concerning the posture of the United States at the United Nations. And I just found Abe—he was always there when I needed him, and he was a source of invaluable counsel as we carried out those very challenging assignments up there in New York. And I'm sure that you continue to watch those issues with a great, great deal of interest, as do I...

The MK 15 Phalanx Close-In Weapons System (CIWS - pronounced "sea-whiz") is a fast-reaction, rapid-fire 20-millimeter gun system that provides US Navy ships with a terminal defense against anti-ship missiles that have penetrated other fleet defenses. Designed to engage anti-ship cruise missiles and fixed-wing aircraft at short range, Phalanx automatically engages functions usually performed by separate, independent systems such as search, detection, threat evaluation, acquisition, track, firing, target destruction, kill assessment and cease fire.

Phalanx underwent operational tests and evaluation onboard USS Bigelow in 1977, and exceeded maintenance and reliability specifications. Phalanx production started in 1978 with orders for 23 USN and 14 Foreign Military Sales (FMS) systems.

Phalanx is a point-defense, total-weapon system consisting of two 20mm gun mounts that provide a terminal defense against incoming air targets. CIWS, without assistance from other shipboard systems, will automatically engage incoming anti-ship missiles and high-speed, low-level aircraft that have penetrated the ship primary defense envelope. As a unitized system, CIWS automatically performs search, detecting, tracking, threat evaluation, firing, and kill assessments of targets while providing for manual override.

Each gun mount houses a fire control assembly and a gun subsystem. The fire control assembly is composed of a search radar for surveillance and detection of hostile targets and a track radar for aiming the gun while tracking a target. The unique closed-loop fire control system that tracks both the incoming target and the stream of outgoing projectiles gives CIWS the capability to correct its aim to hit fast-moving targets, including ASMs.

The gun subsystem employs a gatling gun consisting of a rotating cluster of six barrels. The gatling gun fires a 20mm subcaliber sabot projectile using a heavy-metal (either tungsten or depleted uranium) 15mm penetrator surrounded by a plastic sabot and a light-weight metal pusher. The gatling gun fires 20mm ammunition at either 3,000 or 4,500 rounds-per-minute with a burst length of continuous, 60, or 100 rounds.

I saw this story about Helen Olstein, who was 21-year-old employee from the Macy’s customer-complaint department, a nice Jewish girl from the Bronx, and got selected to be the Macy's Parade Queen in 1926 and 1927.

Miss Olstein, now Helen Gross, turned 101 on May 13. Now living in a retirement community in Plantation, Fla., Mrs. Gross returned as a guest yesterday for the 80th Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, watching the affair from a front-row seat in front of the flagship store on Broadway. On either side were her daughters, Mimi Goldman, 76, and Barbara Cohn, 72.

Born in a small Polish town outside Warsaw, Mrs. Gross immigrated with her parents, sister and brother. They entered through Ellis Island and settled in the Bronx.

“The secret is to keep busy,” Mrs. Gross said of becoming a centenarian. “If you slow down, you’re finished. I still volunteer, I do a lot of reading, and I don’t like to gossip.”

Imagine that. Gossiping is a big no-no.

Thou shalt not go up and down as a talebearer among thy peopleLeviticus 19:16

But then:-

All the attention hasn’t fazed Mrs. Gross. Today, she plans to have a family reunion at a Thai restaurant in Manhattan, joined by her daughters, grandchildren, nephews and nieces. She is to return home tomorrow.

Until 57-year-old Fatma Omar A-Najar blew herself up near Israel Defense Forces troops in the northern Gaza Strip on Thursday, most female suicide bombers had been single. There had also been a few married women - but the 57-year-old Najar was the first grandmother suicide bomber.

Najar, a resident of Jabalya, had nine children and over 40 grandchildren. On Thursday morning, she called her children and asked to see them. She visited those who did not come to see her, without explaining the urgency of the meeting. Her family did not know where she was going when she left her home at roughly 12:00 PM.

Her family tried to explain that there is nothing wrong with a woman, no matter how old she is, carrying out a suicide bombing. Following the suicide attack at the Erez crossing by Rim A-Riashi, who was married with two children, Hamas spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin issued a religious ruling permitting female suicide bombers.

Najar's son Jihad told Haaretz that "a martyr's death is permitted for all, women and men." He said his father, Yusuf, died roughly one year ago but that his mother had been very politically involved prior to his death.

That was Haaretz.

Here's Arutz 7 and notice that foremost is the health of our soldiers:-

Three Givati Brigade soldiers were wounded shortly after 5:00 p.m. in an attempted suicide attack by 57-year-old Fatma Omar An-Najar, who detonated the black explosives belt that was strapped to her body when her attempt to reach the soldiers failed.

The troops blocked the attack by throwing a stun grenade at the Hamas terrorist, a mother of nine and grandmother of more than 25. The soldiers were injured by the flying shrapnel from the explosion.

Explaining the suicide bomber’s action, Fathiya al-Najar, her oldest daughter, said that her son had been killed by Israelis, that her mother’s house had been destroyed, and that another grandson was in a wheelchair with an amputated leg. “She and I went to the mosque,” she told reporters. “We were looking for martyrdom.”

Come to think of it, and only if you insist, martyrdom can solve a demographic problem.

French soldiers in Lebanon who feel threatened by aggressive Israeli overflights are permitted to shoot at IAF fighter jets, a high-ranking French military officer told The Jerusalem Post.

According to the French officer, Nehushtan apologized for an incident on October 31 when an IAF fighter carried out a mock bombing run over a French UNIFIL position in southern Lebanon, almost prompting troops to fire anti-aircraft missiles.

"There was a reality on the ground and it was important for us to reaffirm what we had seen and explain clearly what are the orders of the French soldiers to protect themselves," the French officer said.

"No assurances were made to us that they [the IAF] would stop [the flights]," the French officer said. "The orders that the [French] soldiers have is that their weapons are for self-defense and if a commander will feel threatened, as it was about to happen on the 31st of October, he would have the right to use force."

Everyone knows that Israel isn't going to strafe French troops, bomb them, missle-launch against them or whatever. Aggressive? These are intelligence fly-overs to ascertain that the friggin' French aren't doing their job in making sure that Hezbollah isn't rearming itself.

We have been informed that the Swedish foreign ministry has appealed to the government of Israel concerning an attack on Swedish citizen Tove Johansson, in Hebron, on Saturday afternoon, 18 November 2006. According to press reports, Ms. Johansson is a member of the extremist Palestinian organization International Solidarity Movement (ISM) and was in Hebron as part of a protest against the Israeli presence in the city.

We would like to clarify several points concerning this incident:

1. The Jewish community of Hebron rejects any and all unnecessary violence of all kinds, by anyone, be they Arab or Jewish. This is community policy, and is enforced to the best of our ability.

2. ISM has had a presence in Hebron for over a year, and other foreign organizations, including TIPH, CPT, and others have had a presence in Hebron for a number of years. Very rarely, if at all, have there been any violent incidents between Hebron's Jewish residents and members of ISM. Community residents do their best to ignore them. At most, there are verbal exchanges between the two sides. We are unfamiliar with complaints issued by ISM activists against Hebron's Jewish residents.

3. In accordance with the above paragraph, and keeping in mind the fact that over 30,000 Jews visited Hebron on 18 Nov 2006, celebrating the purchase of the Tomb of the Patriarchs for the Jewish people by Abraham some 3,700 years ago, it is clear that the perpetrator(s) of the attack were not residents of Hebron's Jewish community.

a. Hebron residents do not, and have not, physically attacked ISM members in Hebron.

b. Hebron's residents are known by security forces in the city, and anyone participating in such an attack would have been easily identified and apprehended. However, the police have yet to identify or arrest anyone who participated in the attack.

c. According to press accounts, one of the perpetrators was quoted as having said,"I have a flight to France tonight."

d. The fact that an overwhelming majority of the people in Hebron on Saturday, 18 Nov 2006 were not Hebron residents, along with the above-mentioned facts, is clearly proof that no members of Hebron's Jewish community participated in the attack against Ms. Johansson.

4. According to press accounts, police and other security forces requested, prior to the attack, that Ms. Johansson and other protesters vacate the area, due to the sensitivity of their presence. It must be remembered that strict Sabbath observance forbids use of cameras and other such equipment. Photographing people who object to use of cameras on the Sabbath is extremely sensitive and many people object to being photographed on the Sabbath. Ms. Johansson and others were requested by Israeli security forces and others to refrain from photographing Sabbath observers, however, they refused this request. This, of course, does not justify physical attack, however, clearly, had the protestors acceded to this request, most likely the attack would have been avoided.

5. According to various internet accounts, the attackers yelled, "we killed Jesus and we will kill you too." According to eye-witnesses at the scene, this accusation is false. No such phrase was uttered.

6. In addition, according to some written accounts, Ms. Johansson did not receive proper first-aid care from medics that arrived at the scene. This is also a blatant lie. Medics from the Hebron community arrived in a community ambulance, determined the cause of the injury, and then treated Ms. Johansson just as any other injured person is cared for. The Hebron Jewish community ambulance, together with medic and driver, drove Ms. Johansson to Hadassah hospital in Jerusalem, according her full treatment.

7. Finally, the presence of ultra extremist anti-Israel – anti-Jewish organizations such as ISM and other such groups in Hebron is, as can be understood, extremely unpopular amongst Hebron residents and community supporters. Their presence is clearly provocative, with the goal of aiding Arab terrorists who attempt to murder Hebron Jewish residents and support the aim of expelling Jews entirely from the city. As stated above, Hebron's Jewish community does its utmost to ignore these people, despite the trouble they cause the community, action which, at times, borders on clear incitement against Hebron's Jewish residents as well as Israeli security forces in the area. The fact that during such a huge Sabbath celebration, ISM members saw fit to continue public protest, utilizing instruments as cameras on the Sabbath, and photographing people against their will on the Sabbath, is a tremendous provocation. Again, unnecessary violence cannot be justified, but neither can overt public provocation against such a large gathering. Had they refrained from demonstrating, the attack would not have occurred.

8. In conclusion, the Jewish community of Hebron would suggest to the Swedish Foreign Ministry that in order to avoid any other unpleasant incidents in Hebron, that all Swedish citizens, including members of TIPH and others, such as Ms. Johansson, be requested to stop their politically provocative anti-Jewish activities, leave Hebron immediately and stop interfering in internal Israeli affairs.

Sincerely,

David Wilder Noam Arnon Hebron Community Council Members Spokesmen The Jewish Community of Hebron

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

A few months after my family and I moved to Shiloh in 1981, I witnessed a microcosm of the land problem between Jews and Arabs. A section of land was to be put aside for security purposes and, as the legal procedure dictated, the mukhtars of nearby villages were informed and asked to make sure that any resident claiming private ownership rights should show up on a certain day to stake his claim.

Sure enough, at the appointed hour, seven Arabs walked onto the area and then were asked to stand on what each claimed as his private plot. Within minutes a difficult situation developed when two villagers stood on the same fertile section, insisting that each owned it. A minute later and they were throwing stones at each other.

We, the residents of Shiloh, the IDF officers and legal officials all stood around amazed. In the end, with no documents, no tax receipts, no maps nor any other reliable proof of ownership, the land was confirmed as "state land" and assigned to its new use.

The new Peace Now report, "Breaking the Law in the West Bank," besides making the front page of The New York Times, has generated local headlines as well. Claiming access to leaked "precise" information regarding the legal status of the land upon which Jewish revenant communities have been established, the group asserts that a "direct violation of Israeli law" has been done by "the state itself."

As the League of Nations Mandate makes clear, in Article 6, "the Administration of Palestine... shall encourage, in cooperation with the Jewish Agency... close settlement by Jews on the land, including state lands and waste lands not acquired for public purposes."

State lands make up the vast majority of the area in Judea and Samaria. Land disputes began with the Turkish Ottoman administration and continued throughout the British Mandate period. At the base of the Peace Now approach is the rehashing of many Arab propaganda claims, now being given legitimization by sympathetic Jews.

Peace Now doesn't recognize, it would seem, Jewish land purchases. It would be interesting to learn whether the concern of Peace Now for private land extends to Jews who own property in Judea, Samaria and Gaza, either from pre-state days or afterward, and cannot realize the land's potential due to Israeli government policy or Arab terrorism, such as at Havat Gilad.

THERE IS, it need be admitted, a very fundamental chasm between Peace Now and the reality on the ground. Property disputes have always existed, especially since the first land registration -Tabu - law was promulgated from the days of the Turks only in 1858.

But we should not lose sight of the major issue and that is that this conflict is not about private property but one between two nations claiming the same land.

Even if 51% of the land in question was owned by Jews as private property, Peace Now would oppose a Jewish presence in the area. Shiloh, Hebron and Beit El are place names that simply do not resonate with these concessionists. Their goal is simple: to get the Jews out of the territory they want for a future Palestinian state. To this end, even a juggling of terms and data is permissible.

High Court of Justice President Dorit Beinisch on Wednesday removed the court's former president, Aharon Barak, from a panel of justices ruling on a petition for reforms in Israel's child adoption policy, due to conflicts of interest.

Barak officially heads a panel of seven justices reviewing a petition submitted by the Center for Pluralistic Judaism, the legal arm of the Movement for Progressive Judaism, against the Welfare Ministry. The petition calls for an end to the custom of placing non-Jewish children for adoption with Orthodox families only.

Barak was recently awarded an honorary doctorate from Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, the movement's academic arm, and his decision to remain at the head of the panel has raised public ire.

Your reporter traces a long and frustrating road for Palestinians subjected to Israeli checkpoints and barriers. Perhaps he should have asked some Palestinians waiting in line some important questions:

What would their lives be like today if they had not rejected Bill Clinton’s peace proposal in 2000? Would they be waiting at checkpoints if they had not launched their reign of terror against Israeli civilians?

Where would Palestinians be if they had not elected Hamas? And what if after the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, they had concentrated on building a civil society rather than shooting rockets into Israel?

Palestinian suffering is real. But that is not the real story. The real story is how Palestinians themselves have caused this suffering and use it in the concerted drive to delegitimize Israel and eliminate it as a Jewish state.

Gregg M. MashbergNew Rochelle, N.Y.

To the Editor:

You describe the difficulties facing the residents of the West Bank because of the numerous checkpoints and other security measures taken by the Israeli Army.

It is important to remember that death, contrary to inconvenience and hardship, is irreversible.

The security measures in the West Bank, including the security fence, have saved hundreds of Israeli lives. As soon as the Palestinian war of terror ceases, there will be no need for checkpoints and fences.

Jacob AmirJerusalem

To the Editor:

You describe quite well the situation for Palestinians and Israelis needing to travel West Bank highways. I might add that near my home there is a traffic circle with a spoke into a road leading directly into Bethlehem.

As a symbol of Israeli optimism for the “peace process,” the traffic circle was started before and finished shortly after the war began.

The road to Bethlehem is now mostly closed to traffic. I hope that it will be opened one day.

Here's a letter of mine, sent to The Forward, that didn't get published:

David Grossman called upon Israelis to "stop for a moment [and] take a look into the abyss" in his Rabin Memorial speech ("A Hollow Leadership, And a Miracle Squandered", Nov. 10). The phenomenom of intellectuals and men of letters and the spirit is deeply-ingrained in Israel. However, to excell in literature and science is no guarantee of wisdom.

Israel has already been through an abyss, having been forced there by the policies of those, goaded on by persons such as Grossman, who wish to concede, yield and compromise. Land was surrendered. Security was endangered. Troops were removed from strategic positions. Violations of agreements were ignored. Terrorists were armed. Supervision over the smuggling of arms and war materiel was removed from Israeli control. International funding for humanitarian projects went uncontrolled.

Jewish communities were razed and their population, in an unprecedented act of expulsion, reduced to pariahs. Jews abroad pressured their governments to pressure Israel. This was the period of the Oslo Accords, beginning in 1993, to be followed by the Lebanon retreat and the Camp David II Conference.

The result of all this was death, horrible death and maiming. Suicide bombings and Kassam missiles. And no willingness on the other side to coexist, to cooperate, to reciprocate. Over 13 years of pain, agony and mourning.

How is it possible for such Jews as Grossman to love peace so much that they will sacrifice so many of their fellow citizens and their country's future for such dubious arrangements?

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Entire segments of the security fence near Jerusalem have been breached, allowing dozens of Palestinians to enter the country from the West Bank on a daily basis, Channel 10 reported on Monday evening.

According to the report, no fence remained at all for a stretch of some eight kilometers, and every meter or so, the upper part of the fence was bent.

Holes in the barrier were noted approximately every 100 meters, and the alarm system had been disconnected.

The discovery raises the question of the effectiveness of the barrier, which was built to keep terrorists from infiltrating the country.

Prime Minister Olmert made the following remarks at the start of the meeting: “Throughout our history in this Land, during far more difficult times, we have never run away from our homes. We will not lend a hand to hasty actions that may be good for two or three days but which are liable to have destructive long-term effects.

We do not want to take people out of their homes. Localized instances will be dealt with case-by-case but to load people on buses and whisk them off to five-star hotels? In no way is this Government policy.”

If you didn't get the irony, think DISENGAGEMENT, think Lebanon retreat in 2000.

Monday, November 20, 2006

Israel halted an airstrike against the house of a suspected Palestinian militant in Gaza over the weekend, after the family ignored a warning from the Israeli military and neighbors flocked to the house in numbers to prevent the bombing.

On Sunday, hundreds of Palestinians, including the Palestinian prime minister, manned the house outside - on balconies and the roof - throughout the day. They declared a victory for "popular resistance" as Israel, under criticism for killing civilians in such strikes, called it another example of Palestinians using civilians to shield military activity...But Palestinians celebrated it as a possibly potent new defense against air raids that Israel may find difficult to counter.

The strike was aimed against the house of leaders of the militant group the Popular Resistance Committees...The military spokesman said the attack on the house was called off late Saturday after a routine telephone warning to evacuate the house was ignored. "We didn't want to harm civilians," he said.

Well, EG suggests, why not have the army simply begin calling up different potential locations to warn about an upcoming airstrike, starting at one a day and then working it up to two and three a day.

The result?

Hundreds of Arabs running around like, as we say, chickens without a head. Rushing about, getting tired, getting bothered.

Within a few days, we should have the problem solved.

====================

A comment I received from US:-

Winkie, I just got out of the car after hearing a BBC radio interview with the human shielders and thought of exactly the same idea. Also as it’s mainly women, if they’re out all night protecting these animals perhaps the birth rate will go down!

In “In New Middle East, Tests for an Old Friendship” (“Anatomy of an Alliance” series, front page, Nov. 13), you say Prof. John J. Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago urges more American pressure on Israel to solve the Palestinian question.

But Israel has already given up much of the disputed West Bank and all of Gaza, has released numerous Palestinian Arab prisoners and promised more to come, while getting in return a Hamas regime, terrorism, murder and promotion of hatred against Israel in their media, school books and sermons.

How much more should Israel give before the Palestinian Arabs show even a scintilla of interest in living in peace with Israel?

He could have added that Israel has been yielding territory ever since 1922 (when TransJordan was created for that Saudi Arabian refugee), 1937 when the Zionist Organization agreed in principle to the first Partition Plan, acceded in 1947 to the UN Partition Plan, gave back Sinai to Egypt in 1957, etc., etc.

A blog designed to correct the false impression that Israel is an illiberal, fascist, or apartheid state. Here, I shall present arguments to show that Israel actually embodies the best in democracy, anti-racist, religious freedom, and rights for women, gays, and minorities of different kinds.

Sunday, November 19, 2006

For the 1948 crowd, however, this way of thinking about the conflict is a mistake. They argue that peace is impossible unless Israel admits to and atones for the crime they say it committed nearly 60 years ago, in its independence war of 1948. That crime, they say, was deliberately to expel most of the Arabs of Palestine, close to 800,000 people, in order to be sure of having a Jewish majority for the Jewish state. Unless Israel somehow makes amends for this earlier catastrophe, which the Arabs call the nakba, peace is an impossibility.

Ilan Pappe, a political scientist at the University of Haifa, is one of the purest Israeli exponents of the 1948 view. He knows how provocative it is to choose the phrase “ethnic cleansing” for the title of his latest book. But ethnic cleansing, he insists, is precisely what occurred in the first Arab-Israeli war. It was, he says, a long-premeditated crime, implemented ruthlessly and then systematically denied. In 1948 the Zionists did not happen to wage a war that tragically but inevitably led to the expulsion of parts of the indigenous population. The ethnic cleansing of all of Palestine, he maintains, was the main goal all along.

Inside Israel, the historiography of 1948 has been...[that] in the course of the war that followed, the Jews overcame vast odds, guaranteeing their survival and expanding the territory allotted to them under the original plan. In the course of the fighting, most of the Arab population fled.

Mr Pappe, however, goes a good deal further...He insists that there was indeed a master plan. On March 10th 1948, he asserts, 11 men met at the “red house”, the Tel Aviv headquarters of Israel's pre-state army, the Haganah, to put the final touches to Plan Dalet, “a plan for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine”. That evening, military orders were sent to units on the ground to prepare for the expulsion of the Palestinians. Mr Pappe calls this group of men the “consultancy”, an ad hoc cabal of political and military leaders dominated by Ben-Gurion. And population transfer did not just “hover” in the background of their thinking, he says. It was central from the start...

...It is not, alas, so simple. The consultancy rarely kept minutes. Ben-Gurion was a prodigious diarist, but selective in what he recorded. Mr Pappe admits that he does not in fact know what Ben-Gurion said at the supposedly fateful “red house” meeting on March 10th. As for Plan Dalet, this is no new discovery by Mr Pappe. The plan has been public for decades and does not read unambiguously like a master plan for wholesale ethnic cleansing. The aim was to crush the Palestinian militias before the Haganah had to face the invading Arab armies. It gave commanders discretion to occupy or destroy and expel hostile villages or potentially hostile villages; some destroyed swathes of villages and a few did not. And Mr Pappe's detractors will ask why he ignores the orders sent out by the chief of staff of the Haganah, Israel Galili, on March 24th, reminding commanders of the policy to protect the “full rights, needs, and freedom of the Arabs in the Hebrew state without discrimination”.

And what about the ethnic cleansing attempts at Tel Chai in 1920, Petah Tikva in 1921, Hebron in 1929, Gush Etzion in 1947-48 among others? That's not real ethnic cleanisng?

Beginning at least a decade ago, the national religious camp, the hard core Zionist and Orthodox ideology prevalent among the settler movement, launched a concerted drive to increase their profile in the military.

"There is a major sociological revolution that has gone on in the past decade or so that has placed the religious national youth in the forefront of the army," maintains Yisrael Medad, a settler columnist, blogger and pundit.

In the early 1990s, settler leaders established a pair of year-long prep-schools that combined religious study with military training.

The program has been wildly successful. Today there are 15 such schools and settlers now say they are disproportionately represented inside the army's officer corps and its most elite front line ranks.

Medad claims that one-third of all field commanders from the rank of lieutenant to captain are from the national religious camp, mostly settlers, a claim ridiculed by a professional army in which national service is compulsory.

========================

UPDATE

I sent them this letter:-

I belatedly reviewed your story ("Settlers influence in Israeli army growing",) of the serving of Jewish revenants in the communities in areas not under Israeli sovereignty and read these words: "Perhaps the most trumped-up tale of Israeli heroism in Lebanon…As the story goes…". This is a bit of cruel writing.

"Trumped-up" possesses a negative connotation of unbelievability. Add to that the phrase "as the story goes" and you are clearly intimating that the facts are not facts. But the incident is indeed true. Why the pejorative semantics?

As a teen-ager Kahane was a member of Betar, the youth wing of the Revisionist movement. Together with his young colleagues, Kahane packed arms at the Hoboken docks to be smuggled to the Irgun during Israel’s war of independence. At the time, Betar’s leader in the United States was Moshe Arens, who later became Israel’s Ambassador to the United States.

When Kahane founded the J.D.L., most of its core members were his childhood friends from Betar. Through the 1970s, the J.D.L. worked closely with Betar’s New York chapters, coordinating often violent protests against Arabs and the Russians. The Betar official who arranged events with the J.D.L. was Yisrael Medad, now Geula Cohen’s chief legislative aide.

It is page three of a three-page survey and it it distributed to those who come to the American Consulate on Nablus Road in Jerusalem.

Okay, you've read it.

Now, imagine you are an Arab. Well, at question 8 you'll most probably check "yes". After all, how is anyone at the Consulate going to check if you've made a true or false statement?

Question 9, you'll take a chance and note the third choice, at least 3 checkpoints.

Question 10, you'll check that it was "very difficult" for you to travel to the Consulate. Why not?

And then, these surveys are collected and once a year, they make their way into the U.S. Human Rights report or they'll be used to confront Israeli officilas. Or Condi Rice can say with impunity that there is daily humiliation of "Palestinians".[“I believe that there could be no greater legacy for America than to help to bring into being a Palestinian state for a people who have suffered too long, who have been humiliated too long...]

See how easy it can be to fool everybody?

I don't think this is fair.

And if anyone in the consulate can correct me, I'd appreciate it. And I'll do it without revealing your identity.

Kindly clarify why the survey form (see attached) does not ask questions relating to factors that impact on the ability of Jewish Americans residing in the West Bank to partake in the services of the Consulate (questions relating to security on the roads between the Consulate and their communities).

The Israeli army cancelled a planned air raid on the home of a Gaza militant on Sunday after several hundred Palestinians barricaded themselves inside the building, an Israeli military spokesman and witnesses said.

And here they are:

Palestinian sources called the protest the first of its kind to have in effect prevented an air strike by the Israeli military, which said it held off to avoid civilian casualties.

Israel had served a customary warning to the family of a militant of the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC) in Jabalya refugee camp to evacuate their home because it would soon be bombed, the spokesman and Palestinian witnesses said.

Hundreds of neighbors and protesters gathered at the site, many barricading themselves inside the house and on its roof in defiance of the warning, witnesses said.

Jeremy Ben-Ami is senior vice president of Fenton Communications and an adviser to MoveOn.org. He is a board member of the David S. Wyman Institute on Holocaust Studies and of Americans for Peace Now. Definitely to the "Left".

But his father, Yitzhaq, was way right, a member of the Irgun and the Bergson Group. I helped him research his book.

Soon after the Melk reached Palestine in safety, my father was sent to the United States to seek funds and political support for refugee-smuggling operations. At about the same time, David Ben-Gurion, leader of the Labor Zionists in Palestine, arrived in the United States to persuade Jewish leaders to support an “aliyah war” — bringing large numbers of Jews to Palestine in defiance of the British — “and confront England with the need to combat aliyah with force.”

Neither my father’s efforts nor Ben-Gurion’s found much support among Jewish leaders. One opponent was Rabbi Stephen Wise, longtime leader of the Zionist Organization of America and the American Jewish Congress. Wise, who was deeply loyal to President Franklin Roosevelt, believed American Jews should support FDR’s pro-British policy, and refrain from “anti-British agitation” on the Palestine issue, “even if the Zionist cause suffered.”

My father did not know at the time that he had support in some very high places for his view that resistance to the British was justified. Recent research by The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies has uncovered documents showing that Louis Brandeis, then recently retired from the Supreme Court, supported the refugee-smuggling campaign. At a meeting of Jewish leaders in the summer of 1939, Brandeis slapped down a suggestion that bringing Jews to Palestine in defiance of the British was “illegal.” “It may be considered illegal by Great Britain, but we Jews consider it to be legal,” Brandeis said.

It may seem odd that a venerated Supreme Court justice would endorse breaking the laws of an American ally. But the “Jewish Underground Railroad” that my father and others ran in Europe in the 1930s was based on the same moral principle that energized the original Underground Railroad, which helped black slaves illegally escape the South. Even a former Supreme Court Justice recognized that sometimes the stakes are so high that we must have the courage to act in accordance with our moral principles, even at the cost of violating the law.

On this anniversary of Kristallnacht, the courage of those who resisted is also a lesson worth remembering.

Britain faces a serious threat from Muslim extremists trying to recruit university students to terrorism, the higher education minister, Bill Rammell, will warn today.Mr Rammell will release new guidance on what lecturers should do to tackle violent groups targeting vulnerable undergraduates and preaching hatred on campus.

The guidance contains advice on how to respond if staff suspect groups are circulating extremist literature to students or if they are concerned about radical speakers visiting a university.

Mr Rammell insisted Muslims were not being singled out - but he stressed that the threat from Islamic radicals must be faced head on.

He said: "The guidance provides a recognition - that I believe must be faced squarely - that violent extremism in the name of Islam is a real, credible and sustained threat to the UK.

"And that there is evidence of serious, but not widespread, Islamist extremist activity in higher education institutions.

"This guidance is not about targeting one particular community. It is about promoting safety within higher education institutions and the wider community and about higher education providers taking their responsibilities for the safety and welfare of all their staff and students very seriously."

He added: "It is also about protecting vulnerable students from bullying and harassment and other recruiting tactics of violent extremist groups."

Our Israeli politicians, for the most part, are intelligent people. And they are extremely clever and devious, too, even though we have more that quite a few facing jail, facing embarassment (Katzav, Olmert, Ramon, Hanegbi, et al.). And they can be so off-putting when it comes to their commitment to the national purpose.

It seems that there is a new measuring device called the "silly quotient". Well, not really, but read this piece from the London Times and maybe you'll come to the realization that we in Israel could identify with its contents.

An excerpt from Yes minister, but isn't that rather silly?Jane Shilling

...I have always thought silliness a rather underrated virtue. You can’t grow up, as I did, on a diet of Andrew Lang’s Red, Blue and Yellow books of fairy stories without eventually noticing that, in the end, silliness trumps cleverness and sophistication every time.

One of the earliest meanings of “silly”, before the word came exclusively to mean foolish, was “innocent”. And although that meaning has fallen away from the dictionary definition, it is remarkable how a certain air of slightly mad simplicity still clings to big new ideas...

...What got me started on this train of thought was silliness in politics, and not necessarily in the benign, fairytale, pre-Chaucerian, innocent sense. There is a sort of political trope — you could call it an initiative — that takes the form of a Ministerial Bright Idea. Quite often (for ministers, though they may be silly, are rarely stupid) it is a notion that, if put into practice, would make a useful difference to the lives of the electorate. But almost invariably it is delivered in a style so objectionable, so patronising, so maddeningly . . . silly, as to make the electorate want to rise up and deliver to the minister concerned a sharp smack round the head, so as to bring her (or him) to his (or her) senses.

...Two decades is a long time in politics. Long enough, you’d think, for ministers to have learnt a thing or two about delivering initiatives. But nah. This week they’re at it again and nothing has changed.

Now, where is the Israeli satirist to put this into local parlance and form?

LOS ANGELES (AP) - The owner of an etiquette business who was handed a plastic bag supposedly containing feces in the hit movie "Borat" says she was told the filming would be used for a documentary in Belarus.

Cindy Streit said she filed a complaint Thursday with California Attorney General Bill Lockyer, requesting an investigation into possible violations of the California Unfair Trade Practices Act...

...Streit said she arranged in Alabama both a sit-down session with Borat, played by comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, and a dinner party with some of her friends. Clips of both appear in the movie "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit of Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan."

Though awkward at times, the dinner went well until Borat asked to use the bathroom, Streit said.

"I had taught him to excuse himself. He did that correctly and went upstairs," Streit told The Associated Press. "The next thing that happened is that he came down the stairs holding this plastic bag with whatever was in it."

"My horror was that he had brought a bag of feces to my dinner table," she said.

Springland put in writing that the second of two scheduled sessions "will be filmed as part of a documentary for Belarus Television and for those purposes only," said Gloria Allred, Streit's lawyer.

Streit, 59, said she requested an investigation by the attorney general instead of filing a lawsuit in hopes of setting a precedent that will make movie studios think twice before using other ordinary citizens for "reality movies." However, she said she wouldn't rule out a lawsuit.

Streit's demand follows complaints by others shown in the film, including a lawsuit filed by two fraternity members from a South Carolina university who appear in the film drunk.

Borat seems to have spawned a secondary industry of denials, lawsutis and general all-around anger at being duped.

But with all the money he's raking in (he's #1 this week at $28.3 million), I don't think he's worrying.

In a lengthy petition published in the Frankfurter Rundschau regional newspaper Wednesday, the scholars said that, "The roots of this bloody 60-year confrontation in the Middle East are German and European. The Palestinian population doesn't have the responsibility to take on European problems in the Middle East," according to translations in English-language media.

The signers also questioned whether German backing for Israel was causing tension within German society, and objected to German sales of hi-tech weaponry to Israel despite its actions against the Palestinians.

In addition, the petition also requests a "friendship free from past burdens" between the two countries, in which Israel could be criticized, and, according to news accounts, states that "a large part of the German society has turned the shame and grief of the Holocaust into a ceremonial matter. That is how a problematic philo-Semitism has developed in Germany."

Recognizing Palestinian suffering as an outcome of the Holocaust has been a long-time probl;em and even Menachem Begin had to deal with it with Schmidt.

The head of the delegation, Frank Lautenburg, a patrician, soft-spoken gentleman who was shortly to be elected United States Senator for New Jersey, asked if the prime minister would care to elaborate on that. He had heard that the prime minister had had a serious quarrel with the German chancellor, and that, as a consequence, relations between the two countries were strained.

BEGIN STROKED the chin of his gaunt face, and to lend added sincerity to the words he was about to say, leaned across the table from the front edge of his chair and gazed into Lautenburg's eyes with great earnestness.

"He had gone to Saudi Arabia, and he had said in a public statement that Germany had obligations to various peoples, among them the Palestinians, but he made no mention of the Jews.

"I was beside myself with astonishment. Could it be, I said to myself, that he, of all people, had failed to make mention of Germany's obligation to the Jews - and in Saudi Arabia, of all places? So, yes, I told him what I thought of him in public."

"And how did he respond?"

"He demanded an apology, but I refused. I publicly told him that he had shown arrogance and callous disregard of the Jews exterminated by his people in World War II. And I counseled him to take an example from his predecessor, Chancellor Willy Brandt. I told him to do what Brandt did: to go to Warsaw. I told him to go to the site where the Jewish ghetto once stood.

"Go down on your knees, Mr. Schmidt, I told him. Go down on you knees and beg forgiveness of the Jewish people for what your countrymen perpetrated under the Nazi regime against my people, at a time when you, Mr. Schmidt, remained steadfast to the personal oath you had given to Adolf Hitler, as a soldier in the Wehrmacht."

I will not apologize to Mr. Schmidt, either publicly or privately, whatever the conditions he puts.

Mr. Schmidt traveled to Saudi Arabia some time ago. During and after his visit he made some incredible statements, astonishing from every point of view, and particularly so from the standpoint of the head of government of a nation which bears historic responsibility for the extermination of six million Jews, amongst them a million and a half little children. Mr. Schmidt mentioned Auschwitz and said that he acknowledges the obligation of Germany towards a number of peoples - but the Jewish people was not listed amongst them. Mr. Schmidt spoke of Germany's obligation towards the Palestinians and said not a word of Germany's obligation towards the Jewish people.

In reaction to all those statements I said in a speech that according to a report I got, Mr. Schmidt, as a lieutenant in Hitler's army, was among the viewers of a film showing the hanging by piano wire of German officers who had rebelled against the National Socialist regime.

My friend, Dr. Gideon Hausner, Chairman of the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial Committee, pointed out to me that Lieutenant Schmidt had not participated in the screening of the above film, but he had been invited to and participated in a trial presided over by the infamous Nazi judge Freisler.

I chose to rely upon the information given me by Dr. Hausner, and, accordingly, I informed Bundestag member, Mr. Blumenfeld, that I will not hesitate to admit the error concerning the film. However, participation in the above mentioned Nazi trial is of itself a most grave event in the biography of one of the tens of thousands of German officers during the Holocaust.

I will not apologize to Mr. Schmidt. Rather, I counsel him, speaking as a free man who fought for the continued existence and the liberation of the Jewish people, that he take an example from his predecessor Mr. Brandt, visit Warsaw, go to the site where the Jewish ghetto once stood, go down on his knees and ask the forgiveness of the Jewish people and of all nations loving justice and liberty for what his countrymen perpetrated under the National Socialist regime against my people at the time when Mr. Schmidt remained faithful to the personal oath he had given to Adolf Hitler as a soldier and officer in his army.

The problem is, though, that applauded academics, like Baruch Kimmerling, hold these opinions:-

"...the introduction of the Holocaust into the discourse and the conflict between us and the Palestinians is insufferable because the Palestinians are not an "involved party" to the Holocaust, except in the way that all humanity is involved in it.

The connection between the Jewish Holocaust and the Arab catastrophe exists also in Palestinian historiography, but the context and its meaning is different. The Palestinian complaint on this is familiar and clear. Not Muslims or Arabs but the Christian West, Europeans and Americans, perpetrated a terrible crime against the Jewish people. Some carried out the extermination; others closed their eyes and did nothing to prevent it. After they committed their crimes against the Jews, they washed their hands of responsibility and made the Arab-Oriental people pay the price by helping to dispossess them of their land, thus compounding one crime with another. It is no wonder, therefore, that many Palestinians and other Arabs feel deep resentment towards the West -- a resentment perhaps especially strong among the most "Westernized" of the Arabs.

I have dealt with the inimical issue previously and my position is that if there is a "Holocaust connection", it is that of the links between the Arabs of Palestine and their leader, the Mufti Haj Amin El-Husseini, and German Nazism including active support for the killing of Jews in Europe and the Palestine Mandate as well as causing enough pressure on British diplomats to effectively keep the Jews in Europe where Hitler was better able to murder them.

Their violence prior to the Holocaust was an enabling factor in the post-Holocaust result of 6,000,000 murdered Jews. Had we only had a state previously, one we have full rights to in the area of the historic boundaries of the Jewish national homeland. More info is located here where you can read this:-

Historical documents in Britain’s National Archives in London show that Nazi Germany attempted to ship arms to Palestinian forces in the 1930s.

A British Foreign Office report from 1939 reports of “news of a consignment of arms from Germany, sent via Turkey and addressed to Ibn Saud (king of Saudi Arabia), but really intended for the Palestine insurgents.” Britain’s chief military officer in Mandatory Palestine also noted reports “regarding import of German arms at intervals for some years now.”

British documents from the same period, and German records photographed by an American spy and sent to the British government, said that a number of Nazi agents were sent to Mandatory Palestine, in order to forge alliances with Palestinian leaders, and urge them to reject a partition of the land between the Jewish and Arab populations.

One Nazi agent, Adam Vollhardt, arrived in Palestine in July 1938, and was reported to have gained strong influence with Arab leaders, meeting with Palestinian leaders throughout 1938. Vollhardt held several meetings with leading Arab politicians and told them “that the Palestine question would be settled to the satisfaction of the Arabs within a few weeks,” adding that “it would be fatal to their (Palestinians’) cause if at this juncture they showed any signs of weakness or exhaustion.”

“Germany was interested in the settlement of the (Palestine) question on the basis of the Arabs obtaining their full demands,” Vollhardt was reported to say to Palestinian leaders, according to a report by the British War Office. Vollhardt also assured Arab leaders that “the Germans could continue to support the Palestinian Arab cause by means of propaganda.”

German documents photographed and sent to Whitehall by an American spy revealed that in 1937, German officials had calculated that “Palestine under Arab rule would… become one of the few countries where we could count on a strong sympathy for the new Germany.”

These signatories of the manifesto who stress that it was the Nazi Holocaust which had led to the 'suffering of Palestinians over the past six decades' as well as political experts who hold Germany responsible for 'the transformation of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict' are all wrong and have it all backwards.

Whereas this group has warned that unless Berlin treats Israeli and Palestinians equally and in an unbiased way, there would be 'no dialogue on an equal footing', they have not engaged the true relationship between 'Pals' and the antisemitism of Hitler, one that found friendship in the other.

About Me

American born, my wife and I moved to Israel in 1970. We have lived at Shiloh together with our family since 1981. I was in the Betar youth movement in the US and UK. I have worked as a political aide to Members of Knesset and a Minister during 1981-1994, lectured at the Academy for National Studies 1977-1994, was director of Israel's Media Watch 1995-2000 and currently, I work at the Menachem Begin Heritage Center in Jerusalem. I was a guest media columnist on media affairs for The Jerusalem Post, op-ed contributor to various journals and for six years had a weekly media show on Arutz 7 radio. I serve as an unofficial spokesperson for the Jewish Communities in Judea & Samaria.